The central government has asked automobile manufacturers to upload the specification of vehicles sold to customers on a government portal starting this October. The move will help ease registration process and also generate a digital repository of vehicles. While car makers may do this voluntarily for the time being. Starting October next year, it will be impossible to register a vehicle anywhere in India if data such as engine and chassis numbers, engine capacity, colour and fuel type aren’t made available to the government.
A notification was issued last month, according to which, manufacturers of all kinds of vehicles will now have to upload the specifications given during sale — under Central motor vehicle rules, these details are given in Form 20 — on a portal of the National Informatics Centre. Auto companies already have a database which contains all this information. However, it is only meant to be used internally, which helps in case of recalls.
The move will help in unauthorized registrations, where vehicles are stolen from one state and registered in another. Apart from that, the database will also help service providers such as finance and insurance companies.
An official associated with the project said the new project would give regional transport offices access to a digital bank, and help track everything from registration to fitness of commercial vehicles, national permits and enforcement of penalties, the official added.
Automotive manufacturers welcomed the move, saying that they already have the information ready and transferring that to the government would help in faster and hasslefree ownership of vehicles for customers. “In fact, it would be helpful not just in faster ownership of vehicles to customers, but also lead to smoother transfer of second or third ownership across India, once all the transport centres across the country are computerised.”
Source: ET